The Unforgettable Desire

Imagine an attention deprived 14yo girl getting not only attention but also love and care for being sick. A girl who knew everyone in the school before her illness, a girl who was known in the entire school after. Attention, though enjoyable, can also be scary. From wanting to be seen to living in the fear of being watched, a lot can change for a teenager through her illness. For the most part, having known suffering, having seen suffering, despite her tantrum-throwing self, she learns to be grateful for a life that she earlier despised. It doesn’t help when everyone around her, beginning from her doctors in the ICU to strangers on the road, call her strong. What has she done to survive an illness? Will power, her doctors said. She wondered, really? Maybe. She was just a kid who got her kicks from scoring 100 in Math and wanting to be 'the' topper in class 10 boards. It was the only form of recognition she knew, till she was sick. And the verdict of being strong, of never wan...

The clock struck three. She hadn’t slept all night; the pain had spread in her limbs. Starting from her right hand wrist, she could feel a physical presence of the pain within her bones that seemed to travel to her shoulders to left hand and then to her legs. She was lying, facing towards her left squeezing her left limbs as much as possible for a little relief, at the edge of her double bed. It was the same bed that had felt her body circling in her sleep, covering every inch of the mattress every night when she had began sleeping alone five years ago in a room that she called hers. If someone asked for proof, she’d point to a wall in the room where her name was angrily scribbled in blocks with a pencil as opposed to her brother’s personalized creative decorations for his room. She was swaying her body, back and forth, lying in the same position.    The speed of swaying depended on her fluctuating belief that it can make the pain go away, as if swaying her body were witchc...

Cancer. It gives people the scare. Leukemia, not so much because it’s not a common term. It gave my father a scare because he had heard the term in the movie Akhiyon ki Jharakon Se . It gave him the scare because the 1978 movie showed that Leukemia had no cure. Thirty years later, little did he know that his much-loved daughter will be diagnosed with the same. As for my mother, I don’t know how she felt. If I ask her today, I don’t think she will answer my question. She’s probably one of those people, who can keep their emotions in check when the time demands them to act. My brother’s Class 10 board exam results were out. He says that I was the one who called him to declare his results, that he had secured the second position in his class. I do not have the memory. Although I imagine being immensely happy while shouting his results on phone. I do not remember the date when I was told the name of the disease, whose symptoms had made me slowly immovable over the course of six months. ...

Sundays are supposed to be cheat days, aren’t they? You get to stay in bed as long as you want, eat whatever keeps you alive, have a FRIENDS marathon, check your newsfeeds every now and then, and curse yourself for not doing the piled up work. Such was my last Sunday, that is, 13 November 2016 till I randomly invited a couple of my friends on Facebook for an event of Storytelling Open Mic that I had signed up ‘going’ two weeks ago but was in no mood to attend that day. Being quite sure that no one I know will show up and another event being there in two weeks from now, I was quite comfortably tucked into bed when at four in the evening I got an unexpected call.

In a recent conversation about time travel I was told that had I not had cancer then I might have been pursuing medical or something else. It might have been a hypothetical example. It might have been a personal belief. But it is not the first time that I was said so. I went down the rank sheet post cancer. There was a time when I was among the toppers of my class and I aspired to be the highest scorer in the 10 th boards, then there was the time when the ranks didn’t bother me. In between there was cancer.

I was 14 when I was diagnosed with PRE-B-ACUTE LYMPHOBLASTIC LEUKEMIA at Christian Medical College and Hospital, Vellore. It was a hard time for my parents to manage a household in an unknown city where an unfamiliar tongue was in power where as I enjoyed all the luxuries of a private room in the pediatric ward. But then came my aunt with her one year old daughter, Anusha, to my parent’s rescue. She managed the household chores which mainly included preparing the dishes that I demanded, my Dad took care of the official paper work at the hospital and my Mom somehow managed to handle my tantrums in ward. Becoming a doctor was never my ambition, not even for the essay writing in school. But my stay in Vellore among all the doctors somehow inspired me to become one even though I sucked at biology.  I went back to school, chose biology as my main paper in high school and I am glad that I could at least get a first division in the board exam. By the end of my schooling, I knew very...

I don’t quite remember the days when I suffered from cancer. I ended up romanticizing them as they brought the greater Good to my life. If optimism was my weapon then, I am left weaponless now. In introspection, I have now come to believe that the only reason that I lasted the crucial period of my chemotherapy was because for the most part I had doctors, nurses, sick people and more sick people around me. What I mean to say here is that, I had no or very few Normal people who cared for me enough to give me a list of do(s) and don’t(s) or lectures about self care. When people ask, 'How are you?', they do not really want an answer. Well in my case, they simply seek for an opportunity to let me know how careless I am or have been. I feel bad that they use even an ounce of their energy to say things to me because by now I am skilled in the art of shutting my ears to people I don’t want to hear. People mean good, at the same time they mean nothing at all. The people I meet eve...

Every night when I am in pain I think of the hard yet cozy bed, That kept me company When I was a victim. ‘A Dreadful Disease’ they say I never felt that way. I was in pain then I am in pain now And I think of the place That others detest. If I could choose my dream Tonight I would see myself Sleeping on the same bed, so comfortable. No one wants me back there, No one knows how I feel. I want to travel back in the past Lay with drips in my hands Hear the unknown tongue See the familiar corridors, desks and faces I will know that I am going to be fine Among them I am safe Without them, haunts the fear Day break will wake me up Or the night will envelope my body. I wish to be with the Smiling faces who changed my sheets, Caring faces who medicated me. Never having to be lonely again I wish to wake up joyously. The pain doesn’t vanish there But it’s easier to deal with it. Smile comes naturally with the suffering Understand...

As I have been told over a long period of time, there is no cure for pancreatitis. And in my case, there is no reason for it to recur. Why I suffered from pancreatitis in the first place is explainable. The most important drug in the initial days of chemotherapy did not work out well for me and eventually led me to the infamous place between life and death. May be it sounds a bit too dramatic but then when it comes to me isn’t everything supposed to be dramatic? I am bad at memorizing dates but I think it has been 3 years since my chemotherapy sessions bid me goodbye but pancreatitis remains an uninvited familiar guest. And in last 6 years it has visited my body 10 times or may be more. I don’t really keep the score. No matter how bad the pancreatic ache is, it did a few good things to me. It made me resist the urge to gulp tablets for mild pain , no matter if it’s in the head or the whole body. If I can deal with the pain during pancreatitis without any medicine then I do no...

Memories are what we are left with as the time passes. Some are good and some are bad. We tend to forget some and treasure some. We like to believe that we have the power to control what we want to remember. But in the end, we have every bit of our past stored in some part of our brain, only we cannot recall all of it all the time. Ever since I started writing about my leukemia, I intended to dedicate a post to the 6-7 days that I spent in the ICU. Those days, in the Pediatric Intensive care Unit of Christian Medical College and Hospital, Vellore, are covered under a shroud of mysteries . What I remember of those days can be summed up in an hour! I spend 144-168 hours in ICU and I barely remember anything. Choosing to forget something and not knowing that something in the first place are two entirely different things, the former can help you move on and the latter one can practically drive you crazy. Every now and then I go up to my parents and ask them about those days, they...

“Saw My Sister’s Keeper. Beautiful! At one point had to pause. I was crying so much. It reminded me of you. There is so much more in the world. That is heart breaking, painful, sad yet beautiful. And we cry about stupid things and useless stuff. Sometimes I find it difficult to categorize grief. It’s like – No one can ever decide what problem is big enough to cry about.. For how long! Is someone’s death the pinnacle of grief? Or simply breaking up is enough to keep crying. It is like- I can’t decide which sadness is sadder.” As soon as the motivator friend of mine said these words, I realized that I have been feeling the same way too. Lately I haven’t been able to categorize grief. Anything that didn’t happen the way I expect it to be, made me sad.  In fact I have let petty things upset me. I have shed a lot of valuable tears recently. Also I have been taking the wrong path; I have been taking the way that goes towards the left in the number line. I believed I was e...

A couple of months back when I was at Christian Medical College, Vellore for my half yearly checkups, my blood reports showed an increment in the normal sugar level. It wasn’t high but it was marginal, mostly on the higher side. It had been the same 6 months ago too. I had considered myself lucky enough for not getting another bunch of medicines for controlling my sugar level. But during the last meet, the doctor mentioned that if the level doesn’t come down then I may have to take insulin injections every night. Needles do not scare me, they never did. What does scare me is the thought of not leading a normal life or what I think normal to be. Millions of teenagers may be suffering from cancer in the world, but I do not really care or at least I do not want to. The happiest moment during my CMC days was when my doctor said after the treatment got over that “You’re a free bird now.” After four long years of medication, injections, side effects, it was one thing that gave me the p...

Scars! Scars! Scars! I have often heard that scars aren’t something that you should be ashamed of; they are a sign that you have struggled and survived! Scars aren’t something that needs to be hidden; instead they are something to be shown off with pride. Every single scar has a legendary story buried in it and it speaks louder than the sword that caused it. My body had several scars when I came out of the Intensive Care Unit after a seven day stay [17 June 2008- 24 June2008] which gave almost everyone around me a mini heart attack. I have a quite vague memory of those days. It would be totally fine to say that I remember almost everything of my five year treatment but almost nothing about those seven days in the ICU. People say it is a good thing. I wish it were! I keep wondering what happened to me in that chamber? My parents, when asked, say that I was surrounded by all kinds of medical equipments that they had ever seen. They did not even know what was needed for what. Ev...

I have been an ardent Bollywood buff since the early days of childhood. Movies, songs, thumkes have always been my life. ‘I will fight for a movie; I will cry for a movie. It’s over midnight and I have to wake up for school at 5 in the morning but I will not leave the movie in between.’ Ten years or more it has been and nothing has changed; apart from the “type” of Bollywood movies of course. Born in last decade of 90’s I am the girl who loves both the late 20 th and early 21 st century movies. You get it, I completely love Bollywood and the movies I claim were enchanting in the past. Also, I believe somewhere between the charisma of Rajesh Khanna and Ranbir Kapoor, the charm of the old films is lost in today’s Rowdiness and Dabangg andaaz! Barfi stole my heart though. I did not really intend to write about my love for the Bollywood but about a Bollywood movie which has been my favorite for years now. I was probably 11 or 12 when I saw Anand for the first time. I wasn’t reall...

Unlike all the ‘Food/Beverages’ pages from your FB account. Block every friend who either uploads the pictures of homemade mouth watering delicacies or simply makes a status update. Empty your frozen stocks of chocolate/chocolate related products as soon as possible or in fact eat/drink it in one go. [no more Bournevilles :’( ] Throw away all the cooking oil so that nothing at all can be fried in the kitchen. Avoid going to vegetable market for you may see carrots which can be injurious for your brain as it instantly pictures “Gaajar ka halwa” There’s no saying that you can’t go to sweet vendors for the few sweets that you actually like. Avoid going to your friend’s place for there you may be served samoses, jalebis, burfies etc! No momos, no Aloo tikkis, no Dahi bhalle or chowmein in the evening. Your friends now celebrate for they now have to treat one person less on any occasion. And travelling on the roads of Delhi is strictly banned for you ca...

Flight journeys I do not prefer. Something inside my skull goes wrong. Yet again, here I am writing this from Air India’s Flight number AI 473 taking me from New Delhi to Bhubaneswar. Well this is my first flight trip alone. The one reason why I was excited for this flight is that it takes off from Terminal 3, Indira Gandhi International Airport and my last flight from here made me meet the Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh. I was looking forward to meet some famous persona this time too. And also I feel like mentioning here the one reason why I like travelling in Air India, the air hostesses aren’t beautiful enough and the pilots are always hot and handsome. But anyway I did not start writing because I wanted to let you know about the above details. Well, I had planned to watch the movie ‘Brave’ which I took from my friend recently and here I am typing a blog post. [Seriously God, when will the day come when my smallest plan would work?] While waiting for the flight to take off...

A couple of mornings ago, when I was in a hurry to reach college as soon as possible, I got a paper cut which led to continuous bleeding for a few minutes. Reaching college was so important to me that I did not even bother to give it a second look and by the time I saw it again, the blood had dried. The cut was a deep one as compared to others on my finger. Paper cuts are quite familiar and frequent with me.  [:-P] By the end of that day it was still hurting so I thought maybe I should pay some attention to it then with all the works done. One of my hostlers suggested that I should put on a band aid. It would be fine, I said smiling at the thought of band aids. As a child I always wanted a band aid stuck here and there on my body. If I look back then I can proudly say that I have never put on a band aid on my wounds. Yeah! Never at all. ‘I am hurt- spirit applied- wound burn- let it dry by itself’ was a rule applied to me. Source - Google I remember doing stupid thin...

About a month ago I was lying on the bed in the emergency room of the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, Vasant Kunj, Delhi because I happened to be suffering from pancreatitis for the 10 th /11 th time. As usual my parents panicked, especially my father. He couldn’t stop but think ‘Why again?’ My mom though alarmed was calm. She always has been the emotionally stronger person than my father when it comes to my health. My brother saw me in this pancreatic pain for the second time with the memory of the first one fading, or maybe not. He asked me if I was sad about having the attack again. My instant reply was-  “ Why should I be sad? What’s there to be sad about? I have already suffered around 9/10 times and the pain decreases with each attack. It’s not a big deal anymore. As long as I have the pain, I can’t talk or do anything else. But when it subsides I am happier than I normally am. I am so used to it that if I don’t have it in three to six months, it seems unusua...